Hope you guessed my name
by marieincolour
Summary: It's been a rough few weeks, but a break doesn't turn out to be quite as restful as Sam had hoped. There's something wrong with Dean. Set roughly mid season 4. Mild Dean/Sam, no slash. Hurt!Dean. Disclaimers inside.
1. After the thrill is gone

**A/N: **This is meant to be a three chapter-fic, once I'm done with writing the other two. They'll be out soon, though I can't say exactly when.

The title of the chapter belongs to The Eagles (_"After the thrill is gone"), _the name of the fic to The Rolling Stones (_"Sympathy for the devil"). _

__I don't own Supernatural or any of the characters.

* * *

**After the thrill is gone**

"You boys.. You look ready to drop. How long's it been since you last took a break?" Bobby asks in a gruff voice, rubbing his forehead with the hand still holding his trucker cap.

He looks ruffled and tired, his face lined. The kitchen they're sitting in is a mess of bloody rags and discarded tissues, muddy footprints and old post-it's plastered to every available surface.

Dean's still slumped over the kitchen table, freshly stitched arm held high while Sam wraps it. His eyes are barely open, only vaguely aware that there are people around him talking in stern voices.

"You've been at it for _weeks, _and in case you hadn't noticed, you ain't Duracell bunnies."

"Apocwsh" Dean mumbles, lips smushed against the table top. Sam takes it to mean 'Apocalypse', and feels a stab of annoyance mixed generously with apprehension pound through his belly. Not for the first time he wonders where they'll be in a year from now.

"The Apocalypse ain't gonna come faster just because you two can't stand up straight." Bobby scratches his head, like he's not completely certain where he went wrong with that sentence, but neither one of the boys argue. He seems content that it's gotten the point across.

There's a key on the table, right in front of where Dean has his head. It's old and rusted, and it's got the oldest keychain on it Sam's ever seen.

"You do some maintenance on my cabin, you can stay there. Long as you want. And _at the very least _until that one can take a shower unsupervised."

He nudges his head towards Dean, who's drooling onto a sheet of paper, having _finally_ given up on fighting sleep.

"And keep him away from the booze, Sam. He's damned near pickled his liver."

"Not his babysitter" Sam mumbles, and Bobby throws him a look so cold he doesn't _need _to be told which one of them is his favorite. "No, but he's yours."

It rings with a finality that brings back years of cold nights in drafty apartments, Dean as his only company and his only source of comfort. Bobby's eyes are still staring straight into his own when he looks back up again.

* * *

The scenery changes slowly, almost in tune with the flipping of cassette tapes. It goes from the regularity of the interstate with signs notifying gas stations and fast food like clockwork, ticking along to Led Zeppelin, a map of intersections and flashing lights on the roads underneath them as they pass them over on their bridges to farmlands and long stretches of nothing while Van Morrison wails out of the stereo. They pass into more rural areas, trees and rocks flashing past with dizzying repetition. The Impala purrs, the engine running as smooth as a whistle in the cool air. The road narrows down, bends and twists, like the art of road building had to give for mother nature and accept more turns and corners. They're climbing, slowly, onto a higher plane.

Dean rides shotgun, his left arm curled up against his chest in an attempt to keep it elevated. It slides down when he goes under, then bobs back up along with his head when he resurfaces moments later. Sam's hands are tight on the wheel, his left leg bouncing on the rubber mat in the footwell. His mouth opens now and again as he draws breath to speak. Then it closes. His fingers tighten convulsively around the black rubber, and the engine roars. Dean bobs under again, finally giving into the exhaustion that's been chasing him for weeks, his arm rocking with the motion of the car against his thigh.

The cottage is a dingy, dark green thing with red window sills at the edge of a forest. Sam doesn't have to go inside to know it's been left alone for years, because the roof with missing shingles and the rotten floorboards on the front porch can tell him that easily enough. Next to theirs are about five similar cottages, different shades of green, one a brave and unfortunate shade of brown, in better states than the one they're staying in. He sighs, shoulders his own duffle and _exactly _half of the supplies, leaving the rest for Dean. His shoulders are hiked up to his chin in stress and irritation and sheer annoyance from being cramped in the seat of the Impala for hours on end with a brother that can't blink without getting on his nerves. He _knows _it's unfair of him, but Dean is his brother. His big, childish and reckless brother who's around him 24/7. Always there, always with a fresh comment or a bodily function or a snort/snuffle/snore/cough/sneeze/shuffle.

It just gets to be enough sometimes.

He's wrestled open an uneven door, scraping it against the floorboards and disturbing the striped rug on the floor before Dean manages to shuffle into the room. He looks pale, his skin waxy as he enters on shuffling feet. Sam worries about infection for a split second, pushes it onto his check-list, right after "take a long piss" and "figure out if there's electricity". It takes him another five seconds to realize that Dean _didn't _take in the rest of the supplies, and that he's in fact shuffling towards the car on unsteady steps. He's holding his body stiff, bruised ribs protected by the less jarring motions.

Sam turns away.

By the time he's made it back, his arms full of a moldy looking tarp and some rope, Dean's spread out on his side of the bed – the only bed – looking dead to the world. The supplies are neatly put away, Sam notices, and the tiny kitchen excavated under the mountain of groceries he dumped there earlier.

Anger flares in him anyway. Unfairly and unwelcome. He doesn't _want _Dean to try hard to be on his good side again, because it leaves Sam looking like a bastard for not making amends back.

It's still early, but it's cool out, and one of those days where night comes early. Or never left. Either way, it's dark out, the sky heavy with rain. The tarp under his arm crackles as he kicks the bed Dean's sleeping on, and he tightens his hand around it.

"Dean. Get up. We have to fix the roof first."

Dean turns onto his side, rubs a weary hand over his face, squinting up at him.

"Now?"

"Yes, now. You'll be happy when it rains."

"Rain?"

He counts to ten in his head, refusing to dignify Dean's sleepy confusion with an answer.

Dean shuffles away from the bed a moment later, still looking unsteady and totally without interest in the plan Sam's already made to fix the roof. He's already had the argument with Dean in his head. Feels empty now that Dean is pliant and silent instead of obnoxious and belligerent.

He steadies the ladder against the roof, looks down at his brother still holding his arm tightly against his chest. It's only been a few hours since his stitches. The wounds will be warm, throbbing with blood and swelling. The first day is the worst, and then the pain tapers off into itchiness.

"You'll follow me?"

Dean looks uncertain for a moment, his eyes barely flickering towards his arm and where his ribs are bruised under his shirt. Sam finds himself angry again, frustrated that his brother can't just _tell him _that climbing a ladder right now will hurt like all hell. It's unfair, and he _knows _that. He _does. _

"Good." He snaps, starting up the rickety thing. There's a small tug as Dean settles his hands around it to steady it, holding it firm as he shifts his weight to climb from the ladder to the roof rafters. The tarp crackles under his arm as he tries to unfold it without letting go. He can feel the movement of the ladder as Dean starts up, slow and deliberate. Really, there's no need for him to be here. Strictly speaking, he could still be in bed, and Sam would have gotten the tarp spread out over the rotten shingles on his own. He blames the instinct that still has him splitting a can of coke in _exactly _equal parts, our counting squares on a chocolate bar to make sure they get _half _each.

He's doing all right on his own, with his brother only halfway up the steps, panting in labored, sweaty breaths. He manages to thunder in a few nails with the hammer in his back pocket like he's tightening the corners on a tent before Dean makes it up. By the time he's got the thing nailed down tightly on the top to stop the impending rain from trickling under the loosely fastened edge, he's wondering where his brother got to.

He looks down the ladder again, having fastened the tarp down well enough to last the one night it'll be needed, only to find Dean still on it, his forehead against one of the steps.

"You all right?"

He can hear the briskness in his voice, but his brother responds with a short head shake that doesn't seem to mind the tone.

"Why the hell did you get up there, then?"

He _knows _why, but starts looking for a better way down now that Dean has apparently glued himself to his plan A, and finds that if he hangs himself from his hands he can probably jump down without any injuries. It's less than he's jumped before. He'll take the chance.

His feet land with a soft thump, his right ankle smarting only slightly. Dean is still clutching to the ladder, his face white and his hands trembling when Sam's regained his bearings. He's only two steps up, and the moment Sam touches his shoulder he starts sagging downwards, like the only thing holding him up was him waiting for Sam to get there. Sam steadies him until his feet land on the ground, and then he's stomping off towards the cabin again, carried away by what he recognizes as petty anger.

Dean follows him slowly, looking bedraggled. The first drops of rain fall just as Sam enters the cabin, and by the time Dean has followed him his shoulders are smattered with droplets of water.

* * *

"What the hell is up with you, man?" Sam starts, the moment Dean has made it indoors.

Dean shrugs, turning away like he's trying to avoid the clinch he knows has been in the air for days. Avoidance. Dean's plan A.

Confrontation. Sam's plan A.

"You.. What the hell is up? I don't.. I don't get it, Dean."

"You don't _get it?"_ Dean asks, frowning up at him through red rimmed eyes in a ghostly pale face.

"You're off drinking demon's blood with that _Ruby _chick, and.. You don't.. You. Of course you don't."

The anger that flared in him seems to go out like a candle struck by a gust of wind, and as Sam watches Dean closes his eyes tightly, sits on the bed like he weighs a thousand pounds. One hand pulls itself over his jaw, stubbled and prickly from lack of shaving.

"I can save people, Dean! That's what we _do. _I was dealt this hand, and I'm using it for good. Isn't that.. That's a good thing!" He's pushing it. He knows that.

And then Dean stares at him, like Sam's only understood half of what's going on, and Sam suddenly sucks the righteous anger up and gets it. He _gets it. _Dean is pissed beyond belief that Sam is drinking blood and lying to him and generally going darkside on his ass, but he's hurt and heartbroken and _raw _because Sam.. He's..

It's not just Sam Dean is worried about. It's _them. _Because not only is Sam running away from him to drink blood from a demon. He's..

Sam can't even admit it to himself. Can't shape the words. It's a conversation that means admitting to things Sam refuses to think about, even less than he wants to admit to more than brotherly feelings towards his brother.

What's worse than sleeping with your brother? Cheating on him. Even if it was in death.

His eyes are fastened somewhere in the distance, beyond the physical world, and he hears the door slam as Dean leaves the cottage like it's from far away, his eyes suddenly snapping into action again. Anger bubbles in him, like the demon blood and his humanity are separating. Water and oil. He stomps out, ready to confront Dean out in the rain like they're both in the subtitles of an 80's cop movie, but watches as his brother disappear into the woods without reaching out. His movements are jerky with anger, faster than Sam would have thought him capable when he was stuck up the ladder not ten minutes ago. The car keys jingle in his pocket as he sticks his hand in them to keep them busy, and he figures he might as well go.

Running away. Plan B. Usually follows Plan A.

The ride into town doesn't cool his nerves. It's a solid 25 minutes of sulking, of burning anger in the pit of his stomach. Mostly with himself, for fucking things up. With Dean, for.. For not being dead. He _loves _Dean, more than anything in the world, but he was _dead_. Sam buried him. Grieved over him, didn't think he'd ever recover, and then realized that time was still ticking away. Dean's time, in his body. And now that Dean's back Sam is faced with guilt to his eyeballs for having chosen wrong. For having moved on – wrongly. For being everything Dean was scared Sam would be without him, and feeling like he has to move backwards to fix it. Redo all the decisions he made while Dean was away, only with Dean by his side to judge him.

But mostly he's angry with himself. Ashamed, scared. Terrified, even, because he's so far in over his head in this mess. _So _deep in utter, total shit he might as well be swimming in it.

If he is, he's barely treading water.

He's a boy who grew up in the back of cars and never even knew why until he was nearly an adult. And sure, his father took both him and Dean on hunts. Early on, too, but honestly?

Nothing like this. _Never _anything like this. However epic the story of his mother's death is, and the reasons for it, they didn't face the Apocalypse in Sam's childhood. They took on ghosts. Poltergeists, maybe. Then they waited out their father while he hunted down Wendigos like they were the devil themselves.

Man, a Wendigo would be a _holiday _compared to the shit they've been dealing with.

This is uncharted territory, and he went right in without the biggest Jiminy cricket in the world – Dean. Because he's an idiot, and this wasn't supposed to be his life.

His muscles are tightly coiled as he folds himself into a small booth at the only diner in town, the car filled with groceries and the backseat packet with stacks of shingles from the supposedly closed hardware store. It feels so bleak, so heart-wrenchingly sad and broken down that he can't help the smirk crossing his face for a moment. There they are. Grown up, powerful men. Sleeping in a dilapidated cabin that isn't theirs, and his apple-pie life thrown away for an existence of motel rooms and wet forests. And stupid fights over mundane shit like demon blood addictions and cheating and.. Fuck.

"You look like you need coffee" the girl standing next to him says. She's about his height now that he's sitting down. Can't be a day older than fifteen.

"I do." he answers, trying to keep his anger in check, because whatever he has become, he doesn't scare children. Not yet, anyway.

"A lot of it."

His thoughts wander as he waits for his order, the muscles in his shoulders tensing with the rolling waves of irritation he's trying to bury beneath the mundane activities that somehow make up most of their lives, however many monsters they hunt down. "_I would want to hunt you.", _Dean's voice whisper in his ear.

"Coffee. Enough to drown in" the girls says, planting the biggest to-go cup Sam's ever seen on the table in front of him. He smiles, hands her a bill from his pocket. It's wrinkled. Damp.

"Keep the change" he says, knowing it's the only tips she'll be getting tonight. He's the only one in the place. His steps echo hollowly against the empty booths as he steps out into the rain again.

* * *

He'd half expected Dean to be back when he returned, cutting the engine with a roar so loud it makes the sound of the rain almost silent. It's been an hour and a half.

Really, he wasn't _half _expecting it, either, he was fully expecting his brother to be in bed, an opened bottle of Aspirin on the nightstand and a half drunk bottle of beer on the floor next to him.

Dean's nowhere to be found. There are no wet or muddy boot marks on the floor, no damp clothes haphazardly thrown over furniture to "dry".

Nothing.

He's not suspicious, because Dean does this sometimes. For all his efforts to be easy going, his brother is oddly broody sometimes.

It rankles that Dean doesn't want to come back to _him_. Not even to get out of the fucking rain.

He kicks a chair, and finally, half full and forgotten bucket of coffee on the nightstand next to him, he dozes off. Still fully dressed on top of the covers.

Still angry.

A little worried.

* * *

Morning dawns just as grey and dark as the day before, and if Sam hadn't checked his watch, he'd convinced he'd slept in and reached the next afternoon.

It's just the heavy rainclouds, he finally decides. Blocking out sun and light.

It's still cold, damp and heavy air settling deep into everything and making him shiver through layers of flannel and wool. Fog lies heavy, as if drawn to earth around the trees in the forest where Dean disappeared last night.

Dean himself is asleep, his face so pale and worn it looks almost bruised. He's beneath the covers, but Sam can see his flannel shirt poking out over the dark red blankets. Can smell the damp fabric mingled with fevered sweat. His boots are lying on their sides by the door, covered in damp grass and wet leaves, and the rain has drained off them into little puddles on the floor.

He climbs up to the roof again, ladder exactly where he left it last night, and pokes at the visible rafters under the tarp. He's not a carpenter by far, but even he knows rotted wood when he sees it. Knows that replacing the shingles is one thing, but leaving a rotted roof? Recipe for disaster.

Five minutes out of bed, and he _knows _this isn't his day.

Instead of waking Dean and getting on with their day, instead of going to town on his own and leaving Dean behind to sleep whatever funk he's in off, he settles on the two-seater couch, legs on the wobbling coffee table and laptop on his lap. His mobile internet plug doesn't work up here, between the trees and out in the middle of nowhere.

He expected that.

The thought strikes him that when Dean wakes up he wants to have been doing something _productive, _maybe even useful while Dean slept. All he can seem to do is have imagined conversations in his head, varying on the different ways the day can pan out. He plans what Dean will say when he wakes up. His reaction to having fix the roof.

His scenarios start out with him explaining patiently this and that while his brother challenges his every move, but even his own head refuses to believe him.

He comes out looking like a dick in every single one.

Dean shrugs off sleep around eight, which is less than a couple of hours since he came back, Sam thinks. He looks worse off than Sam had expected, anemic and shaky.

"Morning" Sam says, his voice shorter and harder than he'd intended.

The lack of reply has him looking up, but Dean is just getting dressed. Throws him a thin lipped, pale smile that isn't reflecting the fact that _Sam is watching him get dressed. _There should be a "perv" in there for him somewhere, at the _very _least.

"We need to go into town." Sam finally says, folding the laptop together and settling both feet on the rug underneath him. It's a puke shade of green, and fuzzy. A 70's relic if Sam's ever seen one.

Dean nods.

"I want Marshmallows. And M&M's."

"Fine. You can get them."

Dean looks at him then, eyes fastening on his face until he notices Sam looking back. Shrugs out a kind of nod. Turns away.

Really, all in all? It's not what Sam had expected.

"Breakfast?" Sam asks, after a tense and uncomfortable drive into town. He's still hanging onto the car keys, still driving. Dean clutches his injured arm to his chest, watches the scenery fly by with a kind of tired detachment.

"Yeah, sure." He sighs, so blandly that it almost doesn't fail to tick Sam off. _Almost. _

They stop by the shops they need first, Dean getting his candy and sugar fixes from the gas station next to the hardware shop run by an older man, the kind of man who makes sure his garage door works without a squeak and says "Giving someone the finger is always uncalled for, because it leaves three fingers pointed at yourself." like it fucking _means _something.

Sam _hates _him with every fibre in his being from the moment he strikes up a conversation, grey beard moving with his words. Dean enters the shop just as the man treats Sam to how he thinks a roof should be taken care of and managed to avoid rotted rafters with an amazingly judgmental tone of voice, when the hollow tinkle of a bell announces his brother's entrance for everyone in the vicinity.

"Yeah, I'm coming" Sam says, almost relieved to be picked up like a five year old at the first day of preschool.

The man waves them out, his frizzy grey hair longer than Sam thinks should be legal for someone with a substantial amount of hairless skull showing at the top.

They're at the car when Sam finally realizes he's left the keys at the counter, and he lopes back while Dean leans irritably against the passenger side door, bag of candy dangling from his healthy wrist. It's not raining yet, only drizzling slightly, and Sam would be grateful to be inside again had it not been for the tinkle of the bell and the amazingly irritating man behind the counter.

His keys aren't where he left them, and the man is _busy. _

So Sam waits in line, like any healthy American who hasn't been guzzling Demon's blood would, stationed behind an older gentleman with a coat long enough to reach his knees and trousers short enough to reveal that while he's wearing white tennis socks on both feet, they're mismatched and different brands.

"...and you know after Betty passed on he was never that good at keeping up with the house. I'm telling you, you'll be seeing those new folks plenty now they've moved in. Told me there was _all sorts _wrong with the pipes."

The man behind the counter doesn't look as interested in the story as the teller would have preferred, because his voice rises to new levels of enthusiasm.

"I mean you wouldn't _believe _the kind of things these young people want to grow out here. _Ecological. _Ever heard of such nonsense?

He's still pondering the lack of environmental interest Americans take when the cashier jiggles a finger with his keys hooked on the end in his face, so he presses out a smile and hurries out to rescue his brother from the drizzle.

* * *

"Pancakes." Dean orders. "Coffee, pancakes, a coke and.. No, that's it."

"Same" Sam mumbles, shifting to get close to the window at the inner edge of their table. Behind him is a lady, her hair grey and rolled up in those tight little rolls older ladies seem to fancy so much. She smells powerfully of a perfume that tickles his nose, and it's all he can do not to wrinkle his nose at her. Instead, he slides about a foot to his left and settles in for an uncomfortable, sneezy breakfast.

"He asked for a glass of water, you know, all grateful and shaky that Denny pulled him out of there, and don't you know he drowned before the paramedics could get there? Right on dry land."

Her voice is penetrating and grating, shaking with age. Her listener gives out a sort of quiet squeak of shock or laughter or.. Really, he should be _better _at listening in on other people's conversations by now.

"I tell you, it was the strangest thing. We got him out of the pond, and he was shrieking and screaming until we got him in his house! And you know Grant, he's not one for hollering like that. Cool as a cucumber, he's been for near on seventy years."

"Oh my, Sylvia. That's terrible!"

"And don't you know, he went and drowned? Secondary drowning, they told me. But that can't be, he wasn't even choking on water when they pulled him out!"

"Oh, Sylvia.."

The other woman, with a whispery kind of voice that suggests too much smoking and _far_ too many G&T's goes into a lengthy incorrect medical explanation of how secondary drowning works, and Sam looks over at Dean in a fit of humor to lock eyes with him over the _complete lack _of understanding this lady has of human anatomy when he finds Dean tracing circles in the water his sweaty glass of coke has left on the table top, unaware and deaf to the conversation in front of him.

* * *

The drive back to the cabin is no more fun than the drive to town. Dean seems ready to crash, clutching the bag of sweets to his chest with a kind of ferocity that suggests Sam will snatch it away if he doesn't keep close attention, but his head sags on the back of the seat, his eyes slipping closed against the weak light in the car.

Sam isn't surprised, he was out practically all night.

There are planks of wood fastened to the roof of the car, an ancient towel flapping down one side to pretend the varnish from scratches and scuff marks and it's hitting the window on Sam's side with wet slaps when the wind takes it and lets it go again.

The cassette turns to play Mr. Crowley, and Sam slams the off button so hard the whole front of the stereo comes off.

**End part 1**


	2. More than a feeling

**A/N:** This is part 2 of 3, the last one to be posted sometime next week. I don't have a beta, so excuse any spelling errors or typos. Hope you enjoy.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural or any of the characters, I'm merely borrowing. Title from Rolling Stones (Sympathy for the devil). Chapter title borrowed from Boston ('_more than a feeling_'). I don't own any of those either, and I'm certainly not making any money.

* * *

**More than a feeling**

When they finally return to the cabin Sam halfway expects Dean to suck it up, like he normally does. Help him out, like he normally does. but Dean walks straight to the bed, curling up on top of the covers without saying a word. His back to the room like it will keep him from having to talk to Sam. He's breathing evenly, heavy, but Sam _knows _Dean. Has spent almost his entire life sharing his bed.

He knows when Dean is asleep, and that isn't it.

The hammer is heavy against his leg as he makes his way out into the drizzle to get the roof fixed. Everything he knows about fixing roofs and working with wood he learned from Dean. One summer, a long, long time ago when they were working on Pastor Jim's place for a few bucks of pocket money. He remembers sweaty shoulders and a freckled, grinning face who insisted on carrying a cassette player up onto the roof every day, who'd get sunburned around his t-shirt so bad his upper chest, forehead and arms were flaking within the first two days.

Sam remembers hair so blonde it was yellow and that _massive _grin Dean used to give him. All teeth and adam's apple and a face he hadn't quite grown into yet, and his belly feels warm with the remembered infatuation and fascination for his brother even then.

But Dean is inside, on the bed wearing all his clothes at once. Fevered. Pushed down and scared, because of _him. _Scared because of _and of _Sam. And it's a feeling Sam wishes was never there, but at the same time a feeling he can't bring himself to explore any closer. Something he doesn't want to face, and every fibre of his being is turning him away from. He glides over it in his mind, feeling greasy and sick when he skirts around the edges of it only to move onto something else. Frenetically pulling another thought to the front.

He catches himself repeating nonsense words, drumming his fingers rhythmically against a table top, _anything _to keep his mind away from _it ._

As it is, it takes him five minutes to decide that he can't do this alone. That maybe he doesn't have the skills to fix this roof alone, and if he does it'll take him twice the time. And.. And maybe he just wants Dean there. Wants them to banter and accidentally brush hands, but do that awkward thing they've been doing for the past few years and not talk about _it _before tools slide off the roof and they run inside, fevered and quick.

"Dean!" He shouts, because getting down and walking into the cottage where frustration lies like a heavy cloud is something he's unconsciously trying to avoid. "DEAN!" he bellows, looking over at the only cabin he's seen light in and feeling a slight strain of worry that he's disturbing a neighbor who was no doubt hoping for a holiday all alone up here.  
"What?" comes the muffled voice from inside, and Sam sighs.

"Need some help up here."

There's silence after that, and even if Sam's listening for movement, he doesn't hear it. Finally, in anger, he tries to mark off the part of the rafter he needs to replace, the part that's rotten, leaving enough healthy wood either side that he can merge another piece in there without difficulty.

His hand slips in his hurry to get it done, in his rash and bothered movements, and a gash opens across his wrist. Before the bleeding sets in he can see it's deep enough that he can see flesh and sinew. He curses, doesn't feel the pain.

He's inside within a minute, it seems like. Time is jerking, forth and back in unmeasurable lumps. He's running up the steps, but the walk up to the door is so _long _it might take a month.

"Dean, wh.."

He stops short, his voice angry and booming in the small space when he finds Dean exactly where he left him; pale and tired on his side, back to the door. On the bed.

"Seriously? You go have a _nap _while I'm trying to fix the fucking roof? Thank you _so much _for all your help Dean. I appreciate it."

Dean jerks, and Sam swallows down a wave of dizziness for having dared to accuse Dean of not helping out. It's _Dean, _and it's like his body rebels against his words.

But it's working. It's getting a rise.

"I need stitches." he says, and knows that's all he needs to say to jog his brother into action. Sure enough, there's movement. Sluggish, slow movement as Dean hauls himself into a sitting position, arms and hands first like he's a zombie with no abs.

"wh'appened?" he mumbles, rubbing his eyes clean of pretend sleep.

"Well, you weren't there, you see, and it's a _two man job."_

His eyes dig deep into Dean's as he says it, making sure to point out that he feels left behind and abandoned, when in actual fact he feels strong and angry.

Dean looks up at him, unfazed. "Really." And there's a hint of his obstinate brother under that pale, quiet shell.

Sam shuffles himself into a thin little kitchen chair, spreading his arm on the table top and waiting for Dean to gather up the first aid kit from under the bed, where Bobby's always kept it.

There's no Novocain, nothing to numb the pain, but Sam welcomes the sting as Dean slips the needle through the skin. Feels the burning as it penetrates the layer of nerves right under his skin, tracing a fire through his body into his throat, triggering the kind of nausea you only get from _sitting still _and neglecting your body's natural reaction to being hurt. Dean's left arm is still trembling, still weak, and his right does most of the work. "How's the arm?" Sam asks finally, looking down at the thick wrap of bandages he put on it yesterday morning, covering the thirty-something stitches turning his brother's arm into a roadmap. Dean shrugs.

"Should change the wrappings" he adds when the silence becomes too much, and greasy strands of guilt is creeping towards his forehead, reaching for reality.

Dean finally lets the needle go, cutting thread and putting a compress over the six, neat little stitches. His left hand is left on the table as he tidies up, and Sam grabs for it.

His intentions are to look it over, but his movements are too harsh. Dean pulls back, his face wincing in pain.

"Sorry" Sam says, not feeling as sorry as he should. "Just wanted to.."

"Don't." Dean says, cradling his arm against his chest again, and Sam realizes that Dean is avoiding his touch. _His _touch.

"Just.. Don't."

They sit in silence for a little while, either side of the kitchen table with a half-empty first aid kit between them. Sam's arm is still splayed on the table, white compress taped awkwardly to the slightly hairy skin. His fingers twitch while he stares at it.

He chances a look at Dean, and is startled to find his brother looking torn between anger and.. Tears. His eyes are glassy, still red rimmed, and Sam doesn't know if it's from the fever or from something deeper. It's so far beyond any reaction he's come to expect from Dean that he doesn't want to think about it, doesn't know what to do. He scrapes his chair back and gets to his feet, wanting something, _anything, _to take him away from the cabin and this silent shadow of his brother.

When he's finished tucking the first aid kit away, the door to the cabin has closed and Dean's boots are missing.

He wastes no time leaving the whole situation behind, the trip down to the main road as tense and irritable as the last time he drove down. He's rough on the old car, forcing her through turns and workouts she's not made to pull off seamlessly. He pushes her, heavy right foot and heavy mind.

He doesn't turn towards town. Doesn't want to hear about a Polly or a Betty or a Denny or new local building projects. Doesn't give a shit about diners or coffee or fifteen year old girls with too large grins, about local hardware shop workers who wants to get to know him.

He wants to shoot pool. Wants to ignore that there's a Ruby out there offering her blood, and a Dean out there somewhere in the woods who wants Sam to be everything he's always been, when he _can't _and Dean needs it for the first time, and Bobby in the distance worrying his ass off about the both of them.

For one night, he wants to be _tough._ Wants to be what he used to think his brother and his father were when they'd search out sports bars and pubs. Not the bravery that comes from hunting down and facing monsters, just the kind of bravery that comes from confidence and beer.

For once, he wants to use the skills he's got, but rarely put in use when Dean is _right there _and perfectly happy to do it.

Sam spends the night hustling, an uncharacteristic smirk on his face that doesn't reach his eyes. He returns to the cottage to find it empty, devoid of life signs and light. His pocket is filled with winnings from what can only be considered a _spectacular _night. Maybe not up there with New Jersey in 1993, but it's not bad. And not far off.

His jacket goes over the back of the kitchen chair Dean sat in earlier, his shoes thrown to the floor in a pile right next to where Dean's should be.

When he falls into bed, it's to feel a niggling worry in the pit of his stomach. Like some of the anger has been worked out of him, bled out of his fingers through a pool cue.

Or.. Maybe he's simply less irrational. Had an outlet for the anger in him not connected to reality.

He feels gathered. Collected.

When he falls asleep, it's with a solid promise to be _better. _Like he's six years old and stole the last cookie. Not _far too old _and drinking demon's blood.

He wakes with the promise in the back of his head, like his sleeping mind hand has kept it on top. So he wouldn't forget, and wouldn't wake up that morning with the irrational, unreal anger burning in his stomach again.

Dean is asleep next to him, turned on his side with his face towards Sam. Like he's gravitated closer in his sleep, his sleeping mind not caught up with his decision of not wanting to touch Sam. To be close. He's waxy still, his hair greasy from days without a shower, but his cheeks are flushed red. A bright, cheerful apple red that startles Sam. His breathing his heavy, wheezing painfully. He's asleep, his eyes moving slowly under his lids and his fingers twitching slowly against the red covers. His features are so familiar to Sam that when he looks he feels at home. He doesn't see broad shoulders or a green shirt, carefully tousled hair or the full lips that are the first features you notice when you notice Dean. He sees familiarity, because Dean's face is where he learned what freckles look like, and how eyelashes grow out around an eye. It's a face he's spent his life studying, and he recognizes fever in it when he sees it. The back of his hand confirms it a moment later, and Dean chooses that moment to cough himself awake, panting into the damp pillow case under his head. Sam's fingers trail back to the slightly sweat dampened hair, combing through it. Dean's eyes are guarded when they open, soaking in the kind touches and pushing them away at the same time.

Sam understands. He really does.

"Do you need anything?" He finally manages, his voice thick with sleep. Dean shakes his head, doesn't reply in words. Sam nods, mock serious.

"I'll just leave a glass of water and some aspirin on your nightstand, then, and if you decide you need them after all I promise I wont go looking for them after, all right?"

He expects Dean to soften a little around the edges. Mock him, make fun of him. Anything but blink and keep the guarded, red rimmed gaze fastened on his face. He wants Dean to curl closer, shivering body leaning against Sam's warm and steady one, so he can rub his back and make it better. He wants to be tactile, not a few feet above nailing down shingles while his fevered brother lies shaking and sweating in bed – alone. It's harder to keep himself rational suddenly, when he could be warm under the covers instead of wet and on the roof.

He can hear the coughs, pained and wheezing through the half open roof between the strikes of his hammer – a thin layer of insulation and indoor panelling offering only a slight sound insulation. There's movement, finally, thumps and knocks he can't decipher, because he doesn't know which pieces of furniture makes them. Doesn't know the cabin.

Finally, though, there's a knock of door against frame, and he shouts down to Dean to get him another box of nails. He doesn't need one, but at this point anything that'll strike up a conversation with Dean is good enough.

There is no reply. No sounds suggesting opening of trunks or swishing of boots against the grass underneath the ladder. The itch inside him flares again when he notices a thinly dressed figure moving in between the trees at the edge of the forest, where the area around the cabins has been cleared of larger trees, and undergrowth grows freely about waist height. Then the branches fold in behind the figure, and Dean disappears into the dark of the trees.

And _yeah _he wonders where Dean is going, but mostly? Mostly he wants to finish the roof so he can bitch about doing it alone, while Dean claims to be too sick to work, but is apparently well enough to go for a walk in the forest. Is too sick to be with Sam, but healthy enough to stay on his own in the forest without food or water for _hours._

He's confused and scared and worried, all at once, but not yet angry. Not _yet, _anyway.

The pounds of his hammer sound hollow against the emptiness in the cabin underneath him.

When darkness starts to fall, beyond the unnaturally heavy sky above him blocking out the sunlight, and Dean hasn't shown his face, Sam starts to worry. His phone is on the kitchen counter, his wallet on the nightstand. Sam's hands are raw from working all day, but the roof is finished and water tight, the front steps safe to carry their weight again. The dark blue fleece jacket Dean wears when he's cold and doesn't need to make a good impression on anyone is thrown onto the bed, over the neatly folded covers. Sam grabs it. Ties it around his waist, his cell phone in one pocket and a flashlight in the other.

His boots crunch satisfactorily against the forest floor as he makes his way through the waist high bushes, leftover water from the rain dribbling down his pants. His eyes adjust quickly to the dusky darkness under the cover of the trees, and his ears follow suit when there's a loud, screechy kind of wail over the treetops. Like a bird, but like a human at the same time. A call, unusual and distinctive against the other animal noises in the forest.

He knows it's a bird, he _does, _but it startles him into a deeper kind of worry. His feet follow the direction he saw Dean disappearing to, carrying him on what he realizes is a path. A thin, beaten little path, visible only in the slight dent it makes in the undergrowth.

He follows it, keeps track and knows he's only a few hundred yards into the forest. Not far by any stretch of imagination, his legs warmed out of the kinks they've got from sitting stationary on a roof the whole day. His breath is faster than normal, but not fast. His pulse slow, steady. His stomach worried, unsettled.

He can hear the call, loud and unexpected even as he replays it in his head. He can't see far now, the darkness descending quickly and harshly on the forest ground. He can hear wind and the rustling of plants, but no birds anymore. Only the occasional flap of wings as one of them flies for cover before nightfall truly sets in.

There's no sign of Dean, but he keeps checking the path he's just covered anyway. Turning, looking behind him and to the sides just to be _sure _that Dean didn't show up and disappear while he was turned the other way.

There's movement behind him suddenly, and his heart starts pounding, up his adam's apple and down his belly as it stabs with adrenaline and surprise.

It's not Dean.

There's a man – a boy, really – standing behind him. Right on the narrow path, undergrowth brushing against his dark clothes like they're touching him, reaching out to pull him close. He's pale – so pale that even in the _very _limited light in the forest he looks radiant. The kind of fair hair that's so blonde it's almost white, curled and messy around his head in white coils. Sam freezes. Can't find a thing to say, in pure surprise because this is the first he's seen of the people in the cabin farthest away from theirs. All he's seen so far is a random flicker of light when he's gone out to take a leak that could just as well be his flashlight.

The boy doesn't seem to care that he's not recognized. His gaze is steady, calm as he stares at Sam. _Of course it is _Sam reminds himself. _He followed you._

The eyes, icy blue and clear, keep up the search even as the boy opens his mouth. Sam expects him to ask what he's doing here. Why he's in the forest, all alone in the dark.

The boy seems to smile, teeth sharp and white in the dark, his eyes finished with their roaming review of Sam's face.

"_Timen er komen" _He says, his body language languid and relaxed, like he's skipping class to take a nap on the bleachers, "_Men mannen inkje."_

The language is soft, melodic, and it takes Sam long enough to realize it _is _a different language and not something he can't understand in the momentary adrenaline rush that the boy disappears, turning sideways into the undergrowth and walking off without looking back. Sam wants to reach out and stop him, keep him on the path to make sense of it all. His lips replay the words as well he can, copying the unnatural sounds until they're memorized in his head like a song he can't get rid of.

The adrenaline leaves him shaky and cold, the cold and damp air heavier around him as he moves still further into the forest. The ground turns marshy under his feet, and before long he's walking from tuft of grass to branch to tuft of grass – keeping out of the deep puddles of mud and rainwater underfoot. As he walks he realizes he's nearing what Bobby described as a lake. Not a lake, then, and unlike lakes and ponds made by man the edges aren't defined. There is no "this is ground" and then "this is lake". There is forest, and then there is wet forest, and it's all rough going through the undergrowth and masses of leaf bearing trees. The water he can see, where it's becoming a huge puddle more than wet patch between the tufts of grass, is still and dark green, heavy with growth and mud. The lazy fog that's been clumped to the ground since they arrived is even more noticeable here – over water and around thin, dark brown stems of trees. The smell is almost overwhelming, rotted and moldy plant life stuck in a pond with no fresh water.

With one foot safely on a big clump of grass, the other balanced precariously on a far smaller one behind him he spots him – Dean, sitting still with his knees drawn to his chest on what seems to be a stable surface over the marsh. His eyes are fixed on a patch of water in front of him, but he turns, silently, his eyes still fixed on the water surface.

Finally, when Sam is about to speak to him, he seems to tear himself away, and the gaze he fixes Sam with is so _intense _and full of the life Sam's been missing in him for the past few days that he nearly gasps.

Dean's lips are moving, but there's no sound escaping. No words, nothing coherent. After a moment, he turns back, his eyes still fixed to the dark green water. His head tilts, like he's listening, and then he's edging forwards. Inches from sliding into the water, his feet already in and Sam ready to jump forwards to pull him out, he seems to snap out of it. His face turns to Sam, and he gets to his feet, stumbling wearily from grass tuft to grass tuft until he's within arms reach. Cold. Damp, too warm and too thin he slumps forwards until one shoulder hits Sam's chest.

It's all Sam can do to wrap an arm around his brothers shoulders and walk him as swiftly as he can back to the cabin, the return trip darker and yet easier and lighter than the walk into the forest.

Dean isn't coherent by the time Sam tips him into bed, and his answers to Sam's questions are less than helpful.

"I met the boy" Sam tries. "The.. Blonde kid?" His fingers are working the button of Dean's soaked jeans, trying to get them off. They're clumsy, thick and stupid, not listening to his commands.

Dean's eyes are roaming the room, red and wet and confused.  
"You know him?"

Dean meets his gaze for a moment, and his lips mutter and mumble, but no words escape.

"Thirsty" He finally whispers. "Water?"

He's clammy and cold from the weather outside, his skin still dry and hot from the fever and Sam_knows _his brother. _Knows _that if Dean's been drinking enough water to keep himself hydrated the last few days, Sam'll eat his wallet. Happily. He whips out a bottle of Gatorade and settles in on his side of the bed, turned inwards to keep watch over his brother.

Their boots are drying by the door, leaving puddles of marsh water and strands of grass on the wooden floor.

It's mid morning by the time Sam pulls himself out of sleep, and even if they arrived home earlier than the previous two nights, Dean looks exhausted. Sick. A palm on his forehead takes in cold sweat and fevered heat, and the fine wheeze in Dean's breath is still there. Sam sighs, still on his side and working against the instinct of pulling Dean close, chasing away aches and pains by rubbing his back and scratching his scalp with firm fingers, whispering when there's a need for talking, but otherwise keeping quiet.

Dean sleeps. Sam totters around the cottage for hours, takes out the trash and sweeps the front steps.

There's no life in the cabin furthest from theirs. He wonders if there ever was.

There's no Wi-fi. No way to figure this thing out with Bobby off on his own job, and his phone lies useless and dead inside while he sits on the front steps, staring fixedly at the trees with the handle of the broom in his left hand, thumb idly flicking over the stitches on his arm.

It's a return to simpler times – waiting for Dean to wake up after drinking too much or staying out too late. Tidying up after them both, soaking t-shirts, boxers and socks in a bucket with water and detergent before rinsing them out in cold water and hanging them to try over a clothesline close to the roof of the cabin. It's a lost art, he thinks, doing laundry in a bucket. He's pretty sure they're the only ones still doing it. A long life of motel rooms and a chronic lack of quarters has taught him well, or at least well enough that their boxers and socks can't stand on their own between trips to the laundromat, anyhow.

His mind is clear of the strain between them while Dean is asleep. He can let himself believe that it's all right. They're fine. That his touches aren't unwelcome, and that Dean doesn't treat him like he's part of the decor in the cabin.

Dean wakes, coughing and spluttering, around two in the afternoon. His pallor is the same, sickly grey and waxy under a layer of fevered redness. He's restless today, less coherent than he was the day before, and it's more difficult to get him to swallow down Aspirin.

He wont eat, will only swallow down sips of gatorade when Sam sits holding the bottle for him. He doesn't speak, his eyes roaming wildly around the cabin like he's not sure where he is, staring past the physical world. Following shadows only he can see.

His fever rises and falls through the afternoon, but he doesn't sleep. Sam sits, laptop on his knees on the bed, his hand straying to Dean's chest to rub carefully when the incoherent mutterings grow louder or more desperate. As the afternoon wears on, he sits up, tries to get to his feet. He's still couching, wetly and painfully, but Sam can't get any kind of response from him as to what hurts or what's wrong when he wrestles his fevered brother back under the covers.

Which pretty much settles it as far as he's concerned, because Dean would never ignore him. Not like this, in a petty and childish way when Sam is scared and Dean is angry and terrified under a blanket of catatonic behavior.

When darkness – real darkness – starts to fall, Dean grows restless enough that Sam can't both keep him in bed and have two hands free. It's one or the other, and he relents around eight in the evening, when the darkness in the high set windows is complete and thick, tying his brother to the bedpost with a soft, white rope found in a kitchen drawer.

He's got no doubt that Dean at his full strength can break the grip in seconds, but this Dean tugs at them, like he's one part relieved and nine parts confused. There's no thought behind the tugs and movements, only desperation and complete incoherency. His eyes roam, fastening on Sam like they do the kitchen cabinets and the front door. Or the trees and the sky beyond, Sam doesn't know. He buries his face in the crook between Dean's neck and shoulder, wants his brother to turn his head slightly or rub his back with one of the hands tied to the bedpost, or even just laugh at his girly behavior. _Anything_.

There's no doubt it's a dark night. A lonely, dark and _sad _night in a chapter of their lives covered in _shit. _The cabin could be sunflower yellow and filled with lego, and Sam wouldn't feel more cheerful than he does in that moment. When Dean lays hallucinating and fevered in bed, and Sam sits by his side watching sweat dribble down his temple, the world is a bleak and dark place. Void of happiness and light in more than the physical sense.

There's room in his head for Ruby and for Demon's blood, for soft female hands rather than the scarred, freckled ones he _wants,_ the Apocalypse and waking nightmares, but he pushes them away. Away from the front of his head to a corner where they lie festering as he watches Dean writhe on the pillows, weak and trembling.

His clock ticks silently towards 9:30 PM when his head snaps up from where it's been resting on the pillow on his own side of the bed, on top of the covers where he came to lie about an hour ago, one broad palm over Dean's bicep to keep him calm. It's not working.

There's a noise outside, a repeated wail he recognizes from last night. Loud. Penetrating, bird like. Similar to a scream – but so obviously not one that he can't help but feel curious.

His boots are cold as he pulls them on, still damp from last night, the front of them coated in a layer of thin mud that peels off when he tugs them on, leaving little clumps of dirt on the floor. He'll clean it up later, he thinks to himself, sticking his arms through the too short sleeves of Dean's fleece jacket. It tugs up the sleeves of his henley, leaving layers of fabric clumped up above his wrist in an uncomfortable way that reminds him of times where he'd mock Dean for his average height, stand tall and look _down _at him over the bridge of his nose.

This time he tugs the sleeves closer to his wrists, and push those memories back towards the corner where everything he doesn't want to think about are banished, festering and moldy right above his right ear.

He's barely breached the undergrowth when the boy appears again, this time in front of him like he's slid right out of the tree to his right. He's naked now, radiant and pale in the dark night.

"Timen er komen" he says again, and his voice is still melodic, smooth in a way that reminds Sam of a lady rather than a boy just out of puberty. "Men mannen inkje" Sam says, copying the boy from last night. The boy tilts his head, as if in confirmation. Looks settled, and yet thoughtful.

"Timen" he repeats himself, but more intensely this time. "Er komen."

And then he's gliding into the forest, following the path on feet that seem to barely touch the ground. Naked skin seemingly ignorant of the cool air around him. Sam pulls back. The boy doesn't look strong, he looks naked and vulnerable and pale, but Sam isn't deceived.

He's not fooled.

The boy hasn't hurt them yet, but he might, and Sam doesn't know _how _or _why _or _when, _because he's lost without his research and google, and he doesn't _know anything._

When he turns to walk away, there's movement in front of him. A dark shadow disappearing between the trees, too quickly for him to grasp hold of.

For the first time in a _very _long time, Sam feels the first tendrils of real fear, the one he imagines people must feel when they face a ghost for the first time, crawling up his limbs and into his heart. He sprints back to the cabin to find Dean sobbing heartbrokenly into his pillow, arms twisted around their confines into a pretzel shape so he can lie on his side, nearly on his stomach.

He's soaked through his t-shirt, a thin layer of cold sweat covering his skin as he cries and coughs, out of his mind in a way that scares Sam more than the boy outside or the flash of movement in the forest.

Because this is _Dean. _He's obnoxious and brash and loud, not.. Vulnerable and small and in fucking tears, and Sam doesn't know _anything. _He's clueless. Lost. Confused.

Through the half open door he hears the wail again, and Dean twitches, red-rimmed, wet eyes staring out into the room until it tapers off, then goes back to burying himself against the white cotton again.

It doesn't hit him until later, when they're in the car with Dean sleeping fitfully against the passenger side window wrapped in a fuzzy blanket with his breath still hitching from crying, that he's not angry anymore. Not even remotely.

Just.. Worried.

He feels guilty for feeling relieved.

Sam drives like he's possessed. Hard, rough with the old girl, but miles away from the roughness of yesterday. He forces her through turns and bends with a kind of concentration that almost brings the old car to keep herself on line without fishtailing. His hands, both of them, are firmly fastened to the wheel, and he's close to whiplashing his neck the way he's turning - forth and back – to check on Dean as he goes. Dean seems oblivious. Pliant and calm, but sick. Really fucking_sick._

Sam pushes the throttle, runs the windscreen wipers against the thin, greasy layer of rain covering the front window and feels the tense muscles in his shoulders clench as if in preparation of whatever lies ahead.

**End part 2**


	3. Sgt Pepper's lonely hearts club

******A/N:** I've taken (a lot of) liberties with the time frame, so inconsistencies might occur. This is shorter than the previous chapters, but it would have made an endlessly long one if I hadn't split it. I'm _still _not entirely convinced this is ready for the public, but here it is. Hope you enjoy.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural or any of the characters. Title from Rolling Stones ('_Sympathy for the devil_') and chapter title borrowed from The Beatles ('_Sgt. Pepper's lonely hearts club band')_. I don't own any of those either, and I'm certainly not making any money.

* * *

**Sgt. Pepper's lonely hearts club - Member #1**

It's an anticlimax if he's ever seen one when they end up in a motel room later that night. It's darker – if possible, but the air seems cleaner here. Calmer. The Impala has guzzled down all the gas they had, and when he stopped and took a proper check on on their situation he realized that his brother, who seemed to have contracted pneumonia, bronchitis and the fucking _plague_in the last couple of days, was sleeping in a cramped car next to a gas station while Sam ran them both away from a monster who – apart from reducing Dean to the communicative level of a marble – hadn't hurt either one of them.

So he did the most reasonable thing he could, and took them both home. Home, to a dingy motel room with clean, starched sheets and prickly carpets, with a lady at the front desk helping her teenaged son with his homework and checking them in at the same time. And Dean, fast asleep in the front seat of the Impala as Sam twists them in to the spot in front of their room.

The motel promised free wi-fi, and it works fitfully. He leaves his google searches to load while he wrestles a sweat soaked brother under the covers and makes him guzzle down some gatorade and some aspirin that seems about as efficient in bringing down the fever as yellow smarties would be.

Google has pushed through a search when he comes back.

There's no translation, and what little he can make from the line doesn't make him feel any smarter. It's just an old rhyme. "The hour has come, but the man has not". He can hear the boy repeating the words in his head, like a riddle with some underlying meaning. It can be that the boy is their suspect – that he's waiting for Dean to return, but for what?

Why?

And why not Sam? Why isn't he a shivering mess under the covers instead of Dean?

His second search loads after he's showered, and he wonders for a split second if this motel has filled their DSL-wires with cotton to make them this slow. Maybe there's a monkey in the basement, working the crank.

He fastens his gaze on the computer, forcing them into re-focusing when they slide out. His tired brain takes a few seconds to absorb, and.. His eyes widen, and his heart throbs.

They're dealing with a Scandinavian water sprite. More accurately – one that demands death by luring people into the water so they drown. The scream, the boy in the forest, and Dean. The old man in the diner, drowning in a glass of water. And he knows, just by looking at the tiny pieces of information, that this is no ordinary water sprite. This isn't a kelpie, this isn't just a random fugly.

This creature, in the worst case scenario, that lives in lakes and plays the fiddle to lure his chosen humans into his element, this is a creature so close to the top of the food chain Sam has to swallow back bile at the thought.

This isn't something he can just kill.

And he can see it now. Clear as day.

Dean, listening to music only he can hear, mesmerized by something invisible just under the water surface. His eyes fasten on his brother's familiar features, the wheels in his mind working overtime to put the pieces of the puzzle together, even as he knows. He _knows _who it is. Who it_must be._

The boy. The naked, radiant boy in the forest, the only suspect he has.

Who has let them go. Repeatedly.

It's not making sense, but even as Sam tries to figure out a plan, Dean coughs until he's vomiting over the side of the bed, an orange-y brown puddle of sick on the scratchy rug. It's a sufficient distraction to keep him away from his laptop.

In the end, when the fever rises high enough and Sam is worried his brother will start convulsing on the bed in fits of too high fever, his lungs crackling and wheezing in a way that scares Sam more than monsters because he can't fix this, there isn't much he _can_ do. There's a water demon out there, but unless the fever goes down there's no sense trying to rescue Dean from the grips of the thing.

They're in the ER fifteen minutes after the thermometer shows 105,2 degrees. Dean is a hot lump in the passenger seat, head limp against Sam's shoulder as he struggles to keep him upright to make his breathing easier. It's like his head tells him to keep Dean close, pull him in and hold him close like it's a sure fix for the fever and not just way to keep himself calm. Like he can smooth away everything wrong with broad palms.

Dean's fever has tapered off when they get to the ER, down to a solid 104,6. They don't have to wait, because there's no one else in the waiting room.

Sam thanks heaven for small favors.

The doctor listens to Dean's lungs with a kind of detached professionalism that only comes from working in the ER, and she doesn't seem very concerned for her patient. Dean sits listing to his side on the exam table. Eyes half open, but not fastening on anything. He doesn't jump at the cold stethoscope, barely listens when told to breathe or cough.

That small cough is still the most heartening sound Sam has heart all fucking day.

"It's a _very _mild case of pneumonia. You said he had a high fever earlier?"

Sam nods, feeling tired now. Drained. "Yeah. Very."

"Has he been drinking enough?"

"Probably not."

Her gaze suggests that she's not impressed with his nursing skills. Sam isn't either, for that matter.

"I'm more concerned about his mental state, to be frank with you, Mr. Miller. Your brother seems to be in a nearly catatonic state. How long has he been like this?"

He can sense the danger, the tendrils of black fear stretching from the door to the mental ward all the way down to the ER to grasp hold of his brother, pull him back to a place Sam can't protect him.

"No, he always gets like this from the fever" he assures her. "Always."

The best way to prove you're lying is to push the facts enough times that it makes you sound like you're trying to convince someone (or yourself) of the truth. Sam lies for a living, and he knows all that, but when it's Dean sitting on an exam table with paper under his butt and a gaze so unfocused he could be watching fairies dance on Mars for all Sam knows, his skills fail him. Abandon him completely.

He tugs Dean with him out of the ER ten minutes later, prescription for antibiotics and cough syrup in his pocket. Dean is a heavy weight against his shoulder, moving only when he's pushed forwards. Balancing against Sam's chest, with a long arm loped around his waist.

Sam doesn't feel reassured now that Dean seems to want his touch, is pulled to him like a magnet. It's all he's wanted for the past few days, to be close and happy, but he's _not _happy. Dean's face burns a trail of fevered heat through his t-shirt and into his chest. A fever the doctor can't explain or fix with antibiotics, and Sam _knows _what that leaves.

He wants to let the fever burn out and go away on its own until the naked boy relinquishes his grip on Dean, handing him back to Sam.

It's like a tug-o war with the supernatural.

The first hour is calm. Dean is hot as molten lava against his skin, stripped to his boxers on top of the covers on the motel bed. He's mumbling nonsensically to Sam, an unstoppable flow of words that aren't _real_ words tumbling from his bright red lips. Sam combs his fingers through his hair, coaxes him to drink something. _Anything. _To please, _please _swallow down Tylenol and Aspirin to reach the maximum dosages. He rubs Dean's back as he coughs, pulls him as close as he possibly can when red rimmed eyes start running, either with confusion and fever or with fear and sadness.

It doesn't really matter.

By the third hour, Sam's got his arms full of a brother who's weak and trembling, but desperate._Desperate. _He's muttering, whispering, eyes stuck on something Sam can't see. Sam's like a spider monkey now, arms and legs holding fast around Dean while his fevered limbs pull for freedom.

He wonders what would happen if he let Dean go. What he would do.

It's not just the random wanderings of a fevered dream. These are the movements of someone who knows where they should be, even if they don't know why or how. His fever is rising again, the agitation and movement giving his body purchase for heightening the temperature even further. It's dangerously high now, but any thought of cold cloths or cool sheets to bring it down are thrown out the window when all arms and legs are on board just to keep Dean on the bed.

The cough turns deeper. Rattling, productive in a way that suggests lungs full of _crap._

_Mild pneumonia_ the doctor said. Not even really there.

The situation goes downhill quickly. The desperate movements turn feeble, heavy against the blanket of exhaustion and fever ravaging his body as Sam holds him down. Firmly, as gentle as he can manage. His cough is violent, painful to even listen to. He winces as his brother throws his head back, then forwards and lets it fall with a soft thump to the foam pillow under his head so hard it rattles the bed.

He pukes down the side of the bed – twice – and looks so miserable, so lost and weak that Sam is convinced this is _it _– another situation he can't fix.

They're closing in on hour five when Dean falls still. Like a log, he lies on the bed with his arms over his head, chest panting for air through crackly lungs, stomach hollow and heaving for his breath, stains of vomit at the side of his mouth and his pillow soaked through with sweat. His eyes aren't closed, but not open. And Sam feels it. Feels like he's in a room at a nursing home, waiting for someone to pass away. That moment that feels like a dream, faint and unreal. Like death is tangible if he reaches out to grab hold. _There. _Just.. Right _there._

He's debating what to do – bring Dean back to the hospital and risk a mental ward, or wait it out when Dean fixes him with a stare more vibrant and focused than he's seen in days now.

"_Go back" _he whispers, his eyes burning with a kind of sanity Sam was convinced Dean had left behind. "_We have to go back."_

And while Sam carries his brother to the car in a stolen motel blanket, can feel death following him out the door and taking a seat in the back, he knows Dean is right. They need to go back. The sprite wont let go, and neither will Sam. It's like he's been holding Dean on a tight rope, choking him in his attempts to keep him close and safe, and now he's trailing behind with the rope loose and dragging between them while Dean leads them straight to the belly of the beast.

The drive home isn't pleasant. It's nothing short of pure, mind numbing panic for Sam. He's driving like he stole the car to deliver his brother to a demon he has no weapons against.

This isn't a demon from hell. Not a demon he can _think _at, and it strikes him all of a sudden how much he's been trusting this newfound ability of his.

Dean is quiet in the back seat, the shadow of death hovering somewhere right under the low roof of the car. He's still muttering, but as they lay miles of asphalt behind them, his eyes clear up. His breathing – a deep set, wet rumbling only an hour ago easing out while blurred trees pass them by.

But he doesn't sleep. Doesn't even close his eyes, keeps them open against the dim light in the car. They don't track movement, he doesn't respond to Sam at all.

He's a puppet.

Empty.

It's still early in the day. The day turns, night to day, without any notice from either brother, and Sam doesn't quite know where the night went. Weak daylight hits Sam's face as he exits the car. There are dots of fog again, hovering somewhere right over the ground in ominous little cotton balls. The ground is generously dampened with morning dew. There's a click of a car door behind him, a creak as ancient hinges scream for oil and TLC.

There's no closing smack. No closing creak.

Just soft, fading steps on wet grass.

Sam follows Dean into the woods. A safe distance from his brother's wobbly steps, his right hand on his gun at _all _times. The other one in his left pocket, feeling the iron bullets. Toying with them like they're marbles as he struggles with not catching Dean up. Struggles with not falling far enough back to join whoever's following them.

Dean walks like he's discovering the forest for the first time. His hand stretches out to trail against the undergrowth, against tree trunks and rocks. He's not watching his steps, his face turned upwards. Sam imagines him smiling, his eyes closed.

And yet, he somehow doesn't trip over legs that were too heavy to even twitch just a short hour ago.

Dean pulls ahead, his speed somehow faster now that he's closer to his goal. The path is thicker up close to the lake, grown closed with greenery and bendy around large rocks. He loses sight of Dean several times, sees his blonde head bobbing up again moments later.

When he finally catches up, fully, his feet are ankle deep in marshy water, and Dean is already cross legged and enraptured on the tufts of grass he sat on last time, like he's been there for hours. His expression is one of utmost longing, of happiness and infatuation all at once, like there's nowhere else he'd rather be. And, Sam thinks, no one he'd rather be there with.

He doesn't have eyes for anything other than the pale, dark haired and naked man playing a fiddle. The tune is so sorrowful, so lonely and sad that it almost brings Sam to tears. Like it's conveying in those tunes alone all the things the man playing _can't_ have, and all the things Dean wants.

And Dean is soaking it up like a sponge, eyes closing when the music hits a particularly emotional part. Sam can see the icy blue eyes from where he's standing, fastened on Dean's face as he plays, long dark hair swaying with the movements of the fiddle and bow.

There's a soft huff of air as whatever's behind him catches up, which he'd forgotten about entirely while watching Dean. Staring at Dean. His face, filled with the kind of emotions he doesn't think anyone but Sam should be allowed to put on it. His heart stings with more than terror and adrenaline as he turns to face the boy, pale and white in the daylight standing less than a foot away from him.

And just as Sam opens his mouth to speak, to finally ask what the _fuck _is going on, because he feels threatened and out of his element, and somehow that makes him channel his father, the boy touches his lips with a long, white finger. His gaze is imploring, and really, Sam doesn't have a better plan anyway. The fingers of his other hand close around the cotton shirt he's wearing, tight and firm and _cold _even through the layers of fabric. His hand twitches convulsively around his gun as the cold spreads, tingling and painful through his arm. He can hear the melody in the background reaching a new intensity, like it's building up to something, a powerful crescendo of melancholy and longing. There's movement behind him, and he turns with the boy still clutching his arm to see Dean struggling to his feet, suddenly wobbly and weak again, and his gun is out. Just like that, pointing straight at the figure with the fiddle. He tries to get a clear shot around his brother, but Dean is too busy wading into the water to reach the fiddler to notice. To care.

The boy pulls at him, whispering things in a language he doesn't understand, the sounds foreign and soft, the melody moving up and down in an unfamiliar pace.

Dean's head is barely above water now. There's a snap – like a thread being pulled to its limit and finally snapping in half as the fiddler pulls his bow away from the instrument, slides long, pale legs into the water. His eyes never break contact with Dean's even as his brother struggles to keep himself up in the thick, marshy water. And then the fiddler is almost submerged, and Dean is following. Sam leaps forwards on grass tufts and deeper puddles of water, his gun stretched in front of him in a mix between a deadly weapon and a part of his hand as he grapples for hold to keep himself upright.

The man doesn't seem to care, has only got eyes for Dean. And Dean is sinking under, his face turned to the sky as he lets water lick up his face and into his nose. His mouth is open, he can still see the redness of the lips as they disappear under the surface.

His gun flops to the edge of the pond where Dean was sitting, the stretch of water where he's drowning reaching over to the little grassy ledge where the fiddler just sat, and Sam hits Dean's body with a splash of mud and moldy grass and leaves, his shirt blowing up like a balloon as he struggles to grip a fully grown man who's held back by pale, strong, slimy arms. He can see the man now, different under the cover of water. Snowy white, his eyes shining like lanterns through the marsh, gripping Dean tight even as Sam wins out and pulls them both to the surface.

For a second.

And then there is darkness as the pond itself seems to suck him downwards, an almighty force that starts at his ankles and works itself up his body until it's got him by everything he's got. Pulling down. _Down. _

Down, until there is light and air, and his lungs _burning _in his chest. Dean's head heavy, wet against his shoulder where it hits his collarbone as he's expelled upwards. He grabs for the gun, but his arms are impossibly short, not _long enough. _His fingers too wet, too cold, and Dean is a solid weight pulling him down and away from the grass even as he tries to save him.

And the despair of the situation hits like an unexpected rip curl, throwing him sideways until their upper bodies are on the shore. Soft, muddy grass half covered in marsh water underneath them, and his hand is holding the gun. The dry, safe gun, heavy and cold against his palm as he turns and fires into the water, crossing his fingers that he wont hit their own legs or feet.

An iron bullet, smooth and dark and _so fucking fast _hits the water with a soft little ripple like he just threw a pebble, and he can see where it hits the chest of the water demon as it propels towards the surface. He wants fireworks and explosions. He wants it to be so fucking _obvious _that the thing is dead that there will be no doubt after. He gets none of his wishes.  
It glides away, disappearing into the water like a streamlined fish.

Dean's hands, his fingers that have been stretching for the water relax, tension bleeding out of him. Sam flops to the grass holding his brother as close as he can.

In the edge of his vision, he can see the boy disappearing into the undergrowth. His face smiling, and evil for it.

**End part 3.**


	4. Goodbye yellow brick road

******A/N:** I've taken (a lot of) liberties with the time frame, so inconsistencies might occur. I don't have a beta, and English is not my first language, so do forgive any silly mistakes. Thank you for reading!

******Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural or any of the characters. Title from Rolling Stones ('_Sympathy for the devil_'), painting made by Theodor Kittelsen ('_Nøkken skriker_'). Chapter title borrowed from Elton John ('_Goodbye yellow brick road')_. I don't own any of those either, and I'm certainly not making any money.

* * *

**Goodbye Yellow Brick Road**

Dean's all rubbery limbs and cold, wet skin. There's no adrenaline keeping him going, because his eyes are closed, and apart from drawing breaths to moan, he doesn't respond to any of Sam's attempts to wake him. A rough rub to his sternum earns him a few weak slaps with floppy hands, and finally, he heaves his brother over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, hoping his strength will keep them both going until they can reach the car.

He stops about fifteen times, tipping Dean over into a barely upright-position to check that he's still breathing. Hands fevered as the wait for his chest to widen or contract feels like infinity.

Sam considers the cabin, the red blanket and the stocked refrigerator, but Dean is blue. He's blue, and cold, and unresponsive, and Sam is many things, but not a doctor. Not today.

He tells himself on the drive in, over and over again as he doubts his decision and Dean pants shallowly against the interior in the back seat, that these situations feel _different _than what you'd expect. That secondary drowning doesn't come with a flashing neon sign, and that pneumonia from contaminated water isn't measurable only with a thermometer, and certainly not fixable with tylenol.

Dean is taken away from him within seconds, and all he has left is a pocket full of bullets, a fake insurance card, and his soaking wet attire clinging to every crevice on his body.

And he lets himself ignore, just for a moment, the tiny voice in his head that tells him that the reason they avoid hospitals after a hunt is _this. _When they're both left alone. Cold, scared, still trembling with adrenaline to find what comfort they can in bitter coffee and hard chairs, minds frenetically trying to fill with memories of warm touches and things that makes his belly go warm ('_it's all right, it's fine, everything's going to be fine')._

It's hours until he sees Dean again, and even then it's in a shared ward on a respiratory unit. There's the familiar whizz of oxygen, quiet and even in the silence. Dean's eyes are open as Sam settles himself in a badly padded chair, back to the window and crinkling scrubs rough on his still cold skin. There's a breeze around his ankles where they're too short, bare feet stuffed back in his wet boots.

"'s quiet" Dean mumbles, rolls his eyes accidentally as he battles sleep.

"Yeah. Yeah, it's quiet, Dean."

His voice is rough, but he goes for one of those reassuring smiles he's gotten good at in later years.

"How?" Dean whispers again, barely audible through the mask.

"Steel bullet."

Greenish-brown eyes look at him imploringly to continue, and he shrugs. Weakly.

"Scandinavian water demon.. They.. There's all kinds of lore. Some of them lure you in because they're lonely, and stuck between heaven, earth and hell. And some of them.. Some of them just.."  
His voice breaks, and he re-focuses on the blue blanket covering Dean's legs.

"Steel bullets take down all baddies, right? Or.. Most."

He thinks about the evil grin as a young, pale, naked boy disappears between rain heavy bushes.

"You'll be all right. That's the most important thing."

Dean's eyes follow him as he avoids looking up at his brother to explain further, red-rimmed and deep set in a pale face.

He expects the fever to settle with the steady drip of antibiotics. He expects Dean to wake, be more lucid and clearer. Maybe remember things, maybe reassure his little brother that all will be well. It'll be all right now, and that their biggest worry is the bowl of ripe fruit Sam foolishly left standing out back at the cabin.

But it doesn't happen.

Instead the fever rises, fast and furious against an already compromised immune system, and Dean's defenses are already lowered from weeks of hard work, pain and grief.

There are tubes hanging from under his arm, in a cut smothered in wrappings and ointments, down to containers with brownish liquid, bubbling like there's a child blowing their straw into a nearly empty drinks container. He watches as his brother writhes from fevered nightmares, pukes down his pillow in a brown streak of water with pieces of leaves and grass without ever seeming to notice and feels fear twist in his stomach, so deep and painful hell hounds might just as well be right outside the door.

Sam settles in for the long haul, dry jeans on his legs and a laptop in his lap even as he watches two doctors discuss wether or not to put Dean on a respirator. His mind becomes an amalgam of Norwegian lore, of water demons and respiratory therapy. Of secondary drowning and old worldly fairy tales. Mysterious horses, kelpies, Nyk's and water sprites. Of a hell that isn't dictated by the devil or Christianity, and night nurses with flashlights and tired eyes.

Tubes, bandages, beeping machines and morning rounds.

He doesn't _know _what he's met, what he's talked to or who the boy is. He doesn't know, _can't_know, because everything he finds is vague. More interested in telling him that the thing doesn't exist, and how it's a tale to frighten people away from ponds and lakes in fear of drowning rather than providing the solution he wants.

But he thinks, in the end, as a machine pushes air in and out of failing lungs still bubbling with marsh water, that he has understood. Put the pieces together.

And Death hangs, heavy, wet and imminent in the corner of the room even as he folds the laptop over, spreads one warm palm over a too warm cheek with a prickly layer of dark blonde stubble and prepares to leave the hospital.

His legs carry him deeper this time, his eyes barely skirting the little ledge the fiddler sat so comfortably on last time he was here.. The water is deceitfully still, not so much as the smallest ripple while he passes. There's no noise behind him now, nothing obviously following him even while his neck prickles like he's being watched. Like the forest knows he's here.

His feet walk from tuft of grass to tuft of grass with practiced ease now, heavy boots rubbing the grass down flat against the roots. His fingers fiddle in his pocket as he walks, the other reaching for branches and trees to pull him over the longest stretches of muddy water. He's armed with nothing but faith and words, and they burn heavy in his belly.

The marsh turns into a small lake when he rounds a corner, leaving the marshlands behind entirely as the landscape opens up to show him a larger expanse of open water than he'd have thought possible. It's been there, just around the corner the whole time, and yet he understands well why there is no path leading from the cabins up here. Why this isn't a place to go swimming in the summer or fishing in little plastic boats.

It's _eery. _He can hear the calls of the bird again, wailing and crashing against the open water, still as a mirror in front of him. Dark, bottomless.

Behind a fallen tree trunk he spots movement. A pale knee, folded in half like there's a boy, sitting cross legged with an amused smirk waiting for him to walk around the roots of a tree torn up during a storm, prepared to say his piece and get his will.

"I've waited" he says, when Sam settles himself on steady legs on the outer edge of the dry land. The boy is radiant in the still morning, unabashed that he's wearing nothing more than a grin. His voice carries that melody again, that sings itself up and down in an unfamiliar tune as he speaks. An accent so deep and strange he doesn't know where to place it. It would be amusing on_anyone _else.

"I have your brother, you know."

His voice is so _quiet_, like the sound of water pouring from one glass to another, and still so penetrating that Sam can't help but listen or believe.

"I know" he answers, and he sounds blunt and crude in comparison.

Icy blue eyes fasten on him for a split second before they turn away again, and his pale face opens into a terrifying smile.

"You'll come with me."

His tone is one of utmost faith, the kind that screams that this isn't someone used to _not _getting it his way. He's informing. Not asking.

"This was your plan? Taking people from town to lure us up here?"

The boy tilts his head, his eyes peering through his very _soul _with sheer intensity.

"I didn't" He answers, and there's a hint of blame there. Like he's disappointed Sam hasn't worked it all out yet.

"I take only those who belong with me."

It's an unexpected answer, twisting the understanding Sam thought he had.

"What?" he finally asks. It's hard to think, suddenly, to make up a plan on the go.

A laugh is his answer, so carefree and tinkling in its nature it could belong to an actual sixteen year old boy, were it not for the tendrils of fear stretching up and down Sam's spine at the sound of it.

"Don't you know? It's _fun. _And you would have come anyway, Sam. You just needed a bit of_motivation. _Your brother is just a toy. And it was so easy, sam. _So_ easy."

There's silence for a while, because Sam can't think of a thing to say, and the boy seems content to sit with his hands in the dry grass on the edge of the lake. His curls are drying in the weak sunlight, stretching upwards into a golden halo Sam has only ever seen on ladies with violent perms or cherubs. His eyes, still that same shade of icy blue that's nearly white fasten on Sam from time to time, but he seems content in his belief that Sam isn't going anywhere. That he doesn't need a keeper, because this isn't a kidnapping.

He's not keeping Sam prisoner.

He's having _fun._

"You're toying with him" Sam repeats, finally, his voice having gone hoarse from not speaking. He clears his throat before the boy can answer, his eyes hard and more alive now than before.

"I am. Now."

"Now?"

Red lips twitch into a small, amused smile.

"Now. Did you not meet my.. Ah. _Brother?"_

The last word is said with such contempt Sam can't help but read more into it than what's being said.

"I did you a favor" Sam says. "I ended your turf war. You _owe me."_

His head is frantically trying to find a way to tell this boy that it's his brother's _life _he's draining away with lake water and games and make him _stop._

The boy laughs again, like the sound of a thousand water falls and tinkling china.

"No, Sam. _He _owes you. You sent him on, and that was all he wanted. Just a bit of company and peace. And I? I did _you _a favor."

The loneliest melody he has ever heard trickles like rain from the back of his mind.

"All he wanted? And.. What?"

"Haven't you figured it out? He – my _brother_– wanted heaven. And love." His voice drips with contempt and sheer boredom. "He wanted to _pass on, _and you did that. _He _owes you."

They breathe for a moment.

"Anyone could have done that. Any silly person from town, there is nothing special about your brother. He was weak. Lonely. An easy target."

The realization that he's made his brother the easiest target in the world stings even has he knows it's true. He's been toying with Dean, even while Dean reels from his return to a world gone off its hinges. He feels sick.

"And how do you figure I owe _you?"_

"Because I haven't killed your brother. _Yet._"

The curly head tilts to the side again, looking only vaguely interested in what Sam has to say. Like he's just a distraction until the next one comes along.

Then a smile spreads, so wide Sam is certain he can fit his hand into that mouth, and light a room with the two eyes drilling into his.

"What I really want, Sam, is you. Don't you know? For you and me there is no heaven or hell, Sam, there is only the underworld_. _And we will share it with the world, as one_._" His eyes gaze fondly at the dark expanse of water.

"You're Lucifer." Sam says, feeling certain and panicked and soaked through with the adrenaline pumping through him.

"_Hell _isn't limited to the only one you're familiar with, I'll have you know." The boy says, his expression placid.

"You're supposed to be.. In the cage" Sam hears himself mumble, lips working without his permission as angel faces and seals thunder through his mind.

"Yes, well. 'Cage' is a term open for interpretation, I suppose you could say. Though being stuck as a measly _water demon _wasn't exactly top of my list of favorite things to do until _very _recently. Did you like my little act the other day? Imagine my surprise when the _one person _I want to meet comes strolling into my forest? It was too good to be true, Sam."

Sam wants to turn and run, but there's a part of him that just can't. Or rather, he thinks; Wont.

"You will let him go." Sam responds, voice trembling. "You will let him go, and you can have me."

And Sam thinks to himself that one day, one day _soon, _he will throw himself in death for his brother, and there wont be a deal. There'll just be a mess Dean can't tidy up.

He can't know, might never find out if the boy let Dean go or not. Might never get a chance to make it up to him, or to fix this at all. It's funny, isn't it? How his road to hell really _is _paved with good intentions.

The boy tuts. "Like I couldn't have you both.."

And those eyes, the ones he thought had no effect on him, because boiling monster blood run in his veins and he hasn't succumbed _yet_, pull him in. So deep, so easily it's frightening in its intensity. His feet touch the water of their own accord, cold seeping through the glued plastic seams around the sole, down over the tongue until his feet are swimming in the cold, yellowed water.

Fingers close around his arms again, shockingly cold like they were last time, but somehow stronger. Thinner.

Invincible.

_Steel, _a voice whisper in his ear, sounding a lot like a sixteen year old Dean, freckled and sunkissed, building him up before his first ghost hunt. "_Steel kills _all _fuglies. They hate it."_

It's not true, of course. Steel isn't enough. They spend half their time hunting down archaic rituals, eyes stinging from too small print on ancient, yellowed paper.  
And yet he can't help it, putting his faith in Dean this one last time. Before he goes under and succumbs to fate.

From his pocket he pulls a handful of iron bullets, three stray gas receipts and a suture kit with a needle poking out the top, and as the boy looks on almost surprised, he opens his hand and lets it all fall to the shallow end of the lake with little splashes against his calf.

"You know my name" the boy says, his face angry now. Livid that Sam has worked it out. "You guessed my name, so you must _know, _Sam Winchester, that you cannot kill me. _You cannot get rid of me."_

"You're Nykken." Sam says, firm and pleased now that the creature must let him go. Safe in the knowledge that the king of the underworld _must_ let you go if you call him by his name, or drop iron in his lake, sending him back to his wet, dark cage. It feels so easy, so... Devoid of powerful incantations and magic that he half expects the boy to grin and pull him under, laugh at his childish belief in ancient myths.

And then Nykken, Lucifer, pale as the belly of a fish, sinks to the deeper pits of the lake like the whitest shadow he's ever seen, leaving only a smooth surface of dark water behind him. Sam watches him go, giddy with relief that Lucifer, for all his prowess and cunning, chose a form so easily banished. The part of him that's been itching, rejoicing in the closeness to everything it wants settles, like water just about to boil.

He runs from the forest, with fear beating him on more effectively than whip ever could. Branches slap his face, wet leaves in his eyes and through his hair, and he doesn't _care. _Wants gone, soon, fast, fucking _now._

It takes Dean nearly two weeks to rid himself of the swamp in his lungs, and even longer until Sam stops swearing he can hear things swimming around in there and allow himself a full nights sleep. Two weeks of deep seated anxiety that the boy never let Dean go, and never accepted their deal.

That instead of getting Sam, he took Dean just in spite.

The fever lowers itself until Sam can touch his skin and feel only Dean, the sensation almost foreign after weeks of unnatural warmth. The hand print on his shoulder burns red with the flush of the fever. Sam can't take his eyes off it.

"I get it" Sam whisper to him one dark night, when Dean is still breathing on a machine, his eyes barely open through the fever and the haze of painkillers and a light sedation because his hands are the only things Dean seems able to move, and they always go to free himself of the breathing tube because Sam can't bear to keep him tied up.

"I get it now. I promise." His thumb traces circles over a limp hand.

And all he wants, _all he wants, _is to be fully human. Fully human and on the road, arguing about bad cassette tapes or pretending to argue over who will take the floor in motel rooms with one king when they both know they'll end up somewhere in the middle in a knot of arms and legs. He wants to crawl up next to Dean right now, rest his head against a chest not mechanically expanded with oxygen on a regular interval, kiss healthy, sun kissed and freckled skin and just_be._

Not sit in a hospital room watching his brother breathe through a tube because Sam's a _dick_, feeling his cell phone vibrate in his pocket with another missed call from Ruby, his body calling for her blood. His head is dizzy with fresh knowledge and fear of the future, of the situation he's in. His own role in it. Regret rolls through his belly, vicious and nauseating, and he promises to do better. To _be _better.

He's not fooling anyone.

**-fin-**


End file.
